


Tied Together

by earlgreytea68



Series: Harry Styles, Love Guru [2]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-18 20:51:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: A crow gives Pete an embroidered pink handkerchief on a Tuesday morning, and that's how it begins.





	Tied Together

**Author's Note:**

> You do not need to have read the first part of this series. This is totally standalone. All you need to know is that, in my head, Harry Styles is a sexual sage who goes around solving the true-love foibles of the random rich and famous. And probably other people, too. There should be a Harry Styles, Love Guru, fic for every OTP. 
> 
> Thank you to leyley09, who read this over to make sure it wasn't too ridiculous, and Aja, who read it over and then set my fake Pete Wentz lyrics to music! 
> 
> This is set in the modern day, but I just, as in all RPF I've ever written, idk, ignore slices of reality that would make this not make sense.

Pete gets the summons on a Tuesday.

And there’s no other word for it. It’s definitely a summons. Actually, it’s more like a Summons. Maybe a SUMMONS.

It’s a piece of rosy pink silk, and _Pete_ is written on it in elegant calligraphy. They find it after they chase a crow off of the table at the sidewalk café where they’re splitting an order of French fries after finishing up some joint press. The crow is bold, landing right beside their food, and Patrick jumps back so quickly that he tips his chair backward and stumbles against the table, and Pete, laughing hysterically, grabs for their drinks before they can tip over and shoos the crow away.

It goes flapping up into the sky and Patrick says, “What the _fuck_?”

“It wanted our fries,” Pete says reasonably, still laughing. “You should have seen the look on your face. Man. That was the funniest thing to happen in _forever_. What, are you scared of birds or something?”

Patrick glares at him from under his hat. “I’m not scared of birds. I’ve never seen a crow land on a table like that. That was a huge-ass crow. Don’t even pretend like you’re used to birds landing on the table two inches from your hand.”

Pete is wiping tears away from his eyes, because really, this was the funniest thing in a long time, and then Patrick says, “What’s this?” and holds up the piece of silk. “It has your name on it.”

“It has my name on it?” Pete says, confused.

“What is it, a handkerchief?” Patrick asks, tossing it at him. “Have you taken to carrying around embroidered handkerchiefs now?”

“ _No_ ,” Pete says, picking up the silk. “Why would I—”

Patrick shrugs. “Who can explain your fucking fashion sense—”

“Good taste,” Pete retorts. “ _Good taste_ can explain my fashion sense, I will have you know.”

“Just keep the handkerchief to yourself on stage,” Patrick says, “I don’t want it ending up around my neck or something.”

“I’m not going to have a handkerchief on stage with me,” Pete grumbles, “although, I am now really anxious to get one and tie it around your neck.”

Patrick gives him a look and reaches for a fry.

Pete glances at the piece of silk without interest, because he doesn’t carry a handkerchief and who knows where this piece of silk came from but it doesn’t belong to him. Except that, when he lets it unfold, spilling through his fingers, it is _covered_ in fancy script, and the very first line of it reads _Pete Wentz--_.

Pete startles, staring at it, and then looks up at Patrick. “Is this a joke?”

“Huh?” says Patrick. “Dude, I’m just going to eat all of these fries on you if you don’t pitch in.”

“Where did you get this?” Pete holds up the handkerchief.

“It was on the table,” Patrick says. “I told you.”

Pete looks around them, but no one is paying the least bit of attention to them. They dressed to not attract attention, and it seems to be working.

Except for the fact that someone slipped him a _pink handkerchief_.

 _Pete Wentz--_ it reads. _The disaster of your life would be grateful if you visited me when next you’re in London. Yrs, Harry._

 _Harry?_ thinks Pete blankly.

“What the fuck is this?” Pete asks, and thrusts the handkerchief across to Patrick.

Patrick reads it and shakes his head. “I definitely don’t want whatever weird kink thing is going on on this handkerchief wrapped around my neck.”

“It isn’t a weird kink!”

“You’re embroidering cryptic messages to yourself on pieces of silk,” Patrick says. “That’s a weird kink. I’m not judging, I just don’t want to be pulled into it, please. Let us have this one kink of yours that I don’t get somehow pulled into.”

“First of all,” Pete asserts hotly, “I don’t pull you into my kinks. I’d remember if you ever got pulled into my kinks.”

“How the hell do you think you have any secret kinks left after we went through the _van years_ together?” Patrick asks him.

Which, he has a point about that. Pete says, prim, “Well, you shouldn’t have been spying on my masturbatory habits.”

Patrick snorts. “It hardly required espionage, Pete.”

“ _Second_ ,” Pete says, trying to regain some control of this conversation, “this isn’t me!” He waves the handkerchief around. “I didn’t embroider this weird message to myself! On a piece of silk! Why would I do that? And if you say ‘because you’re Pete Wentz,’ I really will strangle you with this piece of silk.”

“Shout your name a little louder, why don’t you?” says Patrick, sighing and pushing the fries away, like Pete is being unnecessarily dramatic about getting a sudden secret note on pink silk.

“Where did you get this?” Pete demands. “Is this a prank?”

“No. Although I wish I’d thought to do this as a prank, because this is _highly_ entertaining. It was on the table.”

Pete gasps. “Do you think the crow brought it?”

Patrick stares at him for a long moment, then says carefully, “Do I…think…the crow…brought you a message…embroidered…on pink silk?”

“Yeah,” Pete says impatiently. “Do you?”

“No,” Patrick replies gravely. “I do not.”

“Well, if the crow didn’t bring it, where did it come from?”

“Harry,” says Patrick.

“What?” says Pete.

“It came from Harry. It says it right on it.” Patrick points to the signature.

“Who the fuck is Harry?” Pete asks.

“Harry in London,” Patrick says. “Some boy whose heart you broke in London?”

“No,” says Pete. “What? No.” But he thinks frantically if he ever slept with any Harrys in London.

“Maybe it’s Prince Harry,” Patrick suggests.

Pete makes a strangled sound and whispers, “Do you think Prince Harry is sending me messages on silk?”

Patrick gives him another long look. “Do I…think…Prince Harry…is sending you messages…on silk?”

“He could be a fan,” Pete says. “I bet he’s a fan. I bet he’s coming onto me.”

Patrick props his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his hand, like this is the best entertainment he’s had in ages. “I dare you to track down Prince Harry and ask you if he’s flirting with you through pink silk.”

“Dare me what?” asks Pete.

“I don’t know,” says Patrick. “What do you want? Name your price. I’ll pay you, like, ten thousand dollars if you do this.”

“I don’t want money,” Pete scoffs.

“Fine. What do you want?”

Pete looks at the silk handkerchief on the table between them, then says, “I get to drape silk around your neck onstage.”

“Fine,” Patrick smiles. “You’re on.”

***

Pete tweets out, _.@KensingtonRoyal, if Prince Harry is flirting with me through pink silk, I’m here for it, DM me_.

***

Pete has Patrick’s spare room key, because Pete is inevitably going to stop by Patrick’s room at some hour, sometime during the day or night. It’s more likely to be in the middle of the night, actually. Pete has never broken his habit of finding Patrick when insomnia is plaguing him, and Patrick has never broken his habit of letting Pete fuck with any semblance of a sleep pattern Patrick might try to develop.

Well. They broke the habit for a little while. They don’t talk about that. Patrick tries not to wonder where Pete went in the middle of the night during that period of time when they weren’t talking, who he called on the phone demanding songs to be sung.

The band as a whole is very careful not to fall into old bad habits, but Pete and Patrick are nothing but old bad habits gleefully re-embraced. Patrick knows he should probably feel guiltier for this than he does.

So Pete lets himself into Patrick’s room without knocking.

Patrick doesn’t even look up from Garage Band. There’s only one person who would ever walk into his hotel room unannounced. “I could have been indisposed,” Patrick remarks.

“You aren’t,” Pete says, and drops onto the bed next to him. “Turns out it’s not my lucky day. So. Patrick.” Pete wriggles over to put his chin on Patrick’s thigh.

Patrick makes room for him, shifting the laptop over, and says, “What?”

Pete grins.

Patrick wonders if other people think the sort of filthy thoughts about their best friends that Patrick thinks whenever Pete decides to perch his chin on Patrick’s thigh.

Patrick wonders if other people’s best friends perch their chins on their thighs.

“Hi,” says Patrick. “You’re looking very Cheshire Cat.”

“It’s done,” says Pete.

“What is?”

“I asked Prince Harry if he’s flirting with me through pink silk.”

Patrick blinks. “What?”

Pete’s grin is wide and sharp and Patrick wishes he’d move his head off Patrick’s thigh and simultaneously stays very still so Pete won’t move his head off Patrick’s thigh. “You heard me. You already lost. I already ordered special stage silk for you.”

“What did he say?” Patrick asks, because _of fucking course_ Pete Wentz would have a royal chasing him.

Pete rolls away from Patrick’s thigh, shrugging as he props himself up a little more. “I don’t know. He hasn’t answered my tweet yet.”

Patrick stares at him, then shoves his shoulder. “You _tweeted_ him?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“That’s cheating!”

“Cheating?” Pete echoes. “Oho. What an accusation, Trickster.” Pete waggles a chiding finger in Patrick’s face. “I believe you said, and I quote, ‘I dare you to track down Prince Harry and ask you if he’s flirting with you through pink silk.’ That’s what I did.”

“‘Track him down’!” Patrick protests. “That meant _track him down_.”

“Hey, I had to look up his Twitter. It’s not like I follow Prince Harry. Well, I mean, _now_ I follow Prince Harry. Obviously.”

“Fuck you,” Patrick says, annoyed, and goes back to Garage Band.

Pete grins and falls against Patrick, head on his shoulder. “You’re going to be so jealous when I marry Prince Harry and become a prince.”

“That’s not going to happen,” says Patrick.

“You think I couldn’t reel Prince Harry in with my rakish charm?”

Pete could reel anyone in with his rakish charm. Or something. Whatever it is that makes him so irresistible. Patrick’s watched him do it with record executives and interviewers and countless fans. Patrick watched him do it with Joe and Andy, right after he’d done it with Patrick, reeling all of them back in to a thing that _he_ had seemed so determined to have ended. Pete’s got charm enough to press a reset button every time he burns the wrong bridge. Pete will have the entire fucking royal family eating out of his hand.

Fucking Pete.

“Emo Prince Pete,” Patrick says. “That’d be you.”

Pete chuckles, sounding delighted. “I’ll definitely revive the guyliner for the wedding. I mean, if Harry wants it. Whatever Harry wants.”

“How obliging.”

“I am a very obliging lover. You’d know if you ever let me demonstrate to you.”

“I’ve _heard_ ,” says Patrick shortly, thinking of a million nights in a million cheap hotel rooms, a million tiny tour buses, a million different companions Pete fell for and discarded with the same urgent frequency.

Pete doesn’t seem to be thinking about any of those many nights. Pete is musing, “Do you think the Queen will like my tattoos?”

“I think the Queen is probably a huge Fall Out Boy fan,” Patrick says. “Old school. Evening Out with Your Girlfriend days.”

Pete laughs and says, “Totally.”

They fall into a companionable silence. Patrick fools around on Garage Band. Pete takes out his phone and starts fiddling through it. He leaves his head on Patrick’s shoulder and Patrick is quite alright with it being there. 

Until he suddenly sits up. “Hang on. Stop what you’re doing.”

“What?” asks Patrick, pausing the playback.

“I have a DM.”

“On Twitter?”

“That’s where you get DMs. Trickalicious, join this millennium, please.”

Patrick ignores the sarcasm. “Is the DM from Prince Harry?” Patrick asks.

“ _The DM is from Prince Harry_ ,” says Pete excitedly.

“What’s it say?”

Pete reads it and frowns. 

Patrick’s lips twitch. “Uh-oh. It doesn’t say that he’s madly in love with you and wants to have little royal babies with you? Emo punk royal babies?”

Pete turns his phone around so Patrick can see the DM, presumably to shut him up.

_Prince Harry has not been flirting with you via pink silk but is amenable to discussing possible charitable opportunities._

“Well,” remarks Patrick, “‘possible charitable opportunities’ could be a euphemism.” He can’t even get through it with a straight face.

Pete, laughing as well, collapses back onto the bed. “No one likes their sex euphemism to be _charity_. Imagine if Prince Harry fucks me out of _charity_! How humiliating.”

“He might fuck you _for_ charity,” Patrick offers. “Raise a lot of cash if you let the fangirls watch.”

Pete snorts. “They’d rather watch you and me. That’s where the real dough would be at.”

Patrick fiddles around with Garage Band and swallows thickly. “You know how I am about performing in front of an audience,” he manages.

“Brilliant?” says Pete drily. “I’ve never seen you be anything less than brilliant in front of an audience.”

Patrick looks over at him and can’t look away. He thinks about having sex with Pete. He thinks Pete really shouldn’t be on his bed right now.

“Who could Harry be?” Pete muses up at the ceiling, clutching his phone to his chest. “I was _so sure_ it would be Prince Harry.”

“I don’t know why,” says Patrick.

“Because of the crow,” says Pete thoughtfully. “The crow that delivered the message. The SUMMONS. I call it a SUMMONS in all-caps in my head. Did you hear the all caps?”

“I heard the all caps. The crow didn’t deliver the message.”

“The royal family is in charge of the ravens at the Tower of London. And a raven is basically a crow. Therefore.” Pete waves his hand in the air.

“Unassailable logic,” Patrick agrees.

“Indeed,” says Pete. “Now I have no idea who Harry is.” Pete sights and puts his phone aside and says, “But that’s a conundrum for another day. In the meantime, I want you to know that I went with black for your onstage silk. It’s super classy. You’re going to love it.”

“Hmm,” says Patrick dubiously.

***

Patrick loves the black silk.

He loves it _way too much_.

Pete shows up before the set with it coiled in his hands, and he holds it out for inspection. It’s an actual silk rope, not a handkerchief at all. A bona fide rope, for…tying up people. Patrick stares at it and tries not to think about bondage.

Pete says, “Isn’t it _beautiful_?”

Andy says, “I don’t know what sex game the two of you are up to now, but I don’t want any part of it.”

“We don’t play sex games,” Patrick yelps. It would have been more convincing if he hadn’t yelped.

“Sorry, you’ve been playing a giant sex game for the past twenty years of our lives, it’s called ‘Fall Out Boy,’” Andy says.

“That better not come anywhere near me,” Joe says, eyeing the silk.

“Joe, who do I torment on stage with my constant closeness?”

“Patrick,” Joe answers immediately.

“Sex game,” sings Andy behind them.

“Don’t sing,” Patrick says faintly.

“Do you want to sing it in your soul voice?” Andy asks him. “How many notes can you cram into ‘sex game’?”

“I’m not singing ‘sex game,’” Patrick says. How does he get _into_ these conversations? How can he get _out_ of these conversations?

“I should make you sing about sex games more,” muses Pete.

“I won’t accept those lyrics,” Patrick tells him. “You know I’m in charge of which lyrics I use.”

“Yes,” remarks Andy. “That’s always been very telling.”

Patrick glares at him, because what a time for Andy to decide to do this, while Pete is standing in front of Patrick letting black silk ropes dangle through his fingers.

Joe says, “I cannot wait to see what happens with the silk tonight.”

***

The silk ends up around Patrick’s throat. That had always been the plan, and that was all he would have done with the silk, just drape it around Patrick’s neck, except that he hears the hitch in Patrick’s breathing when he tucks the silk into his collar, the way he swallows the word he was singing. Patrick constantly swallows words in live performance, the fans are busy cheering over Pete’s proximity to him anyway, so probably nobody noticed.

But Pete notices. Pete notices the way Patrick’s eyes flicker over to him, hyperaware of him next to him. Patrick doesn’t always react when Pete gets close, especially not these days, when he seems so _used_ to him, so unaffected by everything Pete throws at him. And Pete likes that about Patrick—Pete _loves_ that about Patrick—but also Pete wants to catch Patrick off-guard sometimes, because that’s when Patrick slips, that’s when his eyes look startled by the fact of Pete, and it’s a good look on him. A specially-alluring-to-Pete look.

So Pete doesn’t just leave the silk dangling there. Pete picks up the ends of it, wraps them into his fist, and tugs.

Patrick gasps and misses a note on the guitar. Misses a couple of notes, if they’re being honest. Stares wide-eyed at Pete.

For a long moment they stand there just like that, Pete with silk looped around Patrick’s neck, tugging him close, _keeping_ him close. It’s a guitar solo for Joe, which is a good thing, as they stand there and stare at each other for a long moment. Patrick leans back against the hold Pete has on him, but Pete doesn’t loosen it, and Patrick closes his eyes and swallows hard.

 _I could keep you on a leash_ , Pete thinks. _Tie you up to break the tie between us, to finally declare a victory for both of us, tie you to the bedpost and to me._

He doesn’t say any of this because they’re in the middle of a set in front of thousands of people. Later, he thinks. Later he will write them down and send them to Patrick, this dare they’ve been escalating for a decade now. _Here are my words, Patrick. Which ones you will take? I dare you._

He lets go of the silk. Patrick opens his eyes. Time snaps back into place, spins forward.

Patrick leans into the microphone and sings, his eyes on Pete. _I don't know where you're going, but do you got room for one more troubled soul?_

***

Pete doesn’t bring up the moment with the silk. Nobody does. Patrick wonders where this suddenly-tactful band of his came from, and is alarmed. Relieved. And alarmed. And aroused.

Patrick is a lot of things.

He claims to be exhausted and goes to bed early. They’re on a tour bus, traveling through the night to get to their next venue, and Patrick wishes he had a hotel room, had a door to lock against Pete, which isn’t entirely fair, this isn’t Pete’s fault that Patrick is a mess when it comes to him.

His phone vibrates under his pillow. He knows he shouldn’t stick his phone under his pillow, but it’s a bad habit. He pulls it out, and it’s an email from Pete with the subject line _Lyrics_. Patrick is hiding in bed, and Pete is out in the lounge writing fucking _lyrics_.

Patrick opens the email. _I could keep you on a leash. Tie you up to break the tie between us, to finally declare a victory for both of us, tie you to the bedpost and to me. Black silk around your neck. Neck and neck, and in the end the tie is ours to take, the tie is us. Black tie event, and we are the dress code violations, unleashed, untied, together._

Patrick reads the lyrics over and over until he feels like his eyes are bleeding, and then he sticks his phone back under his pillow and rolls over.

He pretends to be asleep when Pete comes in.

***

It’s a rare night indeed when Pete is snoring and Patrick is staring up at the ceiling. The bus rolls underneath them, eating up miles, and Patrick can’t sleep. Patrick can’t think of anything but Pete’s words. _Tie you to the bedpost and to me_ , Patrick thinks.

Maybe he should get up and set the words to music. Maybe that would get them out of his head.

Patrick tiptoes out of the room. Pete is a fitful sleeper, and he doesn’t want to wake him up, but Pete’s snoring never stops, and Patrick achieves the lounge area, where there’s a teddy bear sitting on the couch.

Patrick tips his head at it, confused. He’s never seen this teddy bear before. Did Pete leave it for him?

Patrick glances at the sleeping area he just left, then reaches out for the teddy bear. There’s a card tied around the bear’s neck. Tied with black silk.

Patrick swallows. This is definitely Pete’s work. Just to torment himself, he reaches out to read whatever Pete’s written on the card.

But it’s not Pete’s handwriting. It’s elegant calligraphy that Patrick recognizes, because he saw it embroidered on the pink silk handkerchief that started this whole mess.

Patrick frowns. _Patrick Stump--_ , the card reads. _You’re more disastrous than he is. Come and see me. H.S._

 _H.S._ Harry, Patrick thinks. Harry what? Harry S. Harry S. in London.

Patrick texts Joe and Andy. _Do we know a Harry S. in London?_

He doesn’t expect a response—it’s the middle of the night—but Joe texts him back immediately. _Harry Styles?_

“Oh, fuck,” Patrick says out loud.

***

Pete is catching bumblebees. They’re lovely bumblebees that don’t sting, iridescent in color. They buzz around Patrick’s head, and Patrick says, “Crows don’t deliver messages,” and Pete says, “They’re bumblebees, silly Patrick,” and kisses him, and the entire world shakes around them.

Pete falls out of bed and finds himself staring up at Patrick.

“Sorry,” Patrick says. “I didn’t mean to make you fall out of bed.”

“What the fuck,” Pete says, disoriented, picking himself up off the floor. “Did you just wake me up?”

“Pete, where did you get this?” Patrick thrusts something into his hands as he crawls back into bed.

It’s dark, and Pete is still half-asleep. He says, “Huh? What? Patrick, go back to sleep.”

“No, this is important.” Patrick’s voice is tight with urgency. “Where did this teddy bear come from?”

“Teddy bear?” Pete echoes, and squeezes the thing Patrick stuck in his hands. It does feel like a teddy bear. “I don’t know.” He yawns and reaches for Patrick. “Come to bed. I need a pillow.”

“You have a pillow,” Patrick says, as he lets Pete tug him into the tiny bed. “Pete, did you get it from a fan?”

“The pillow?” Pete says sleepily, rubbing his cheek against Patrick’s t-shirt. It’s soft and warm. Patrick is soft and warm. Pete _loves_ Patrick. So he says it. “Hey. I love you.” He nuzzles his face into Patrick’s chest.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “I know. Pete, is it possible Harry Styles is stalking us?”

“Probably,” Pete says. “We’re pretty hot. I’d stalk us.”

“You do basically stalk us.”

“Uh-huh. I have good taste. Go to sleep, Trick.” 

“I think Harry is Harry Styles,” Patrick says.

“Harry who?”

“Your Harry. Prince Harry.”

Pete wakes up. He blinks out into the darkness. Then he props himself up on Patrick’s chest. “You think Harry Styles is flirting with me through pink silk handkerchiefs?”

“Kind of,” Patrick says.

“Huh,” says Pete. “Nice. He’s hot. I should give him a call.” Pete puts his head back down on Patrick’s chest, yawning again.

“What happened to being tied together?” asks Patrick.

Pete chuckles. “Jealous?”

“No.”

“Who do I sleep with every night, babe?” Pete asks.

“That’s not…” Patrick huffs out a breath. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I didn’t know the silk rope thing was going to be a thing for you,” Pete remarks. “I guess you know more about my kinks than I know about yours.”

“It’s not a thing,” Patrick denies.

Patrick snorts softly. “Okay, Trickalisticexpialadocious.”

“It’s not a _thing_.”

“Can we go to sleep now instead of playing ‘Patrick Stump Denies Kinks in Unconvincing Tones of Voice’?”

“You’re such an asshole,” Patrick huffs. “I hate you so much.”

“Good thing Harry Styles loves me then,” Pete says.

“Go to sleep,” says Patrick.

***

Patrick wakes up to Pete in bed staring at him from a few inches away.

Patrick closes his eyes again. “You know I hate when you do that. It’s creepy.”

“You got a note,” Pete says, and Patrick freezes.

Then he opens his eyes and scowls at Pete. “Did you go through my stuff?”

“You had a teddy bear appear out of nowhere. I didn’t go through your stuff. I went to your hiding place you think I don’t know about. Newsflash, Tricktacular: I know that hiding place.”

“I love to wake up in the morning to invasions of privacy from my best friend,” Patrick snaps.

“We live in each other’s pockets,” Pete retorts, “we’ve never had privacy.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“We’ve never been healthy,” is Pete’s rejoinder.

Patrick can’t really argue that one.

“Why did we both get notes?” Pete demands.

“I don’t know, Harry Styles wants a threesome or something,” Patrick snipes grouchily. “I’m not doing a threesome with you and Harry Styles.”

“Is that why you were going to hide it from me?”

“I don’t know why I was going to hide it from you,” Patrick says. “I just…didn’t want to tell you.”

“I think we should go see Harry Styles together,” Pete says.

“And say what?” asks Patrick. “I’m not doing a threesome. I already told you.”

“Why do you think this is about a threesome? If Harry Styles wanted to have sex with us, why didn’t he send us a joint note asking us to have sex?”

“‘Dear Pete and Patrick, Would you like to have sex with me? Sincerely, Harry Styles.’”

Pete shrugs. “Why not? That would work on me. Wouldn’t it work on you?”

“ _No_ ,” Patrick says.

“What the fuck works on you?” Pete bites out in a flash of anger.

Patrick blinks and recoils automatically.

Pete flurries his way out of the bed in a profusion of melodramatic movements. “We’re going to see Harry Styles,” he announces. “You’re not going to argue with me about this. We’re going to see Harry Styles and if this is about a threesome, I’m going to ask Harry Styles to tell me the secret of getting Patrick Stump into bed. I’d really love to hear it.”

“The secret,” Patrick informs him loftily, annoyed, “probably starts with not invading his privacy on random Friday mornings, actually _telling_ him you invaded his privacy on random Friday mornings, and then commanding him to have sex with Harry Styles.” Patrick throws a pillow at Pete’s head.

Pete dodges the pillow, halfway into the lounge area, before turning back to say, “Also, by the way, Harry Styles is clearly magic, so be careful he doesn’t turn you into a toad if you don’t have sex with him.”

“I want to switch buses,” Patrick calls after him. “Call Andy and tell him he has to come deal with you and your Harry Styles delusions.”

“Oh, trust me,” Pete calls back, “I am already calling Andy.”

Patrick frowns.

Pete in the lounge says, “Andy? Patrick and I have to fly to London… To see Harry Styles… It’s probably about a threesome.”

***

Patrick doesn’t mind fighting with Pete, except on the occasions when the fight lasts past the initial blow-up. And then he hates fighting with Pete. And they are fighting magnificently at the moment, and Patrick isn’t even sure what they’re fighting about. Invasions of privacy, maybe. Harry Styles, maybe. Sharing beds and sharing lives and carefully never sharing orgasms, maybe. All Patrick knows is Pete is in a stubborn silent sulk the entire flight to London. He doesn’t talk to Patrick when they land, either. He doesn’t talk to Patrick as he checks them into the suite he booked for them. He doesn’t talk to Patrick in the suite, either.

But he talks to lots of other people. Patrick sits on the couch and watches Pete finagle and charm his way to Harry Styles’s number. He watches Pete call Harry Styles. He watches Pete say, “Yeah, yeah, totally.”

The first thing Pete says to Patrick is when he ends the call with Harry Styles. He says, “Harry says to come ‘round straightaway. So let’s go get this over with.”

Which is quite a way to refer to…whatever the fuck this is that’s about to happen.

When they get to the sidewalk in front of Harry’s house, Patrick is seized by sudden nerves. He has no idea what’s about to happen. This is all too ridiculous to comprehend. And Patrick…well, Patrick doesn’t like to go into unknown situations without Pete at his side. Pete’s right there next to him, but feels miles away, and Patrick grabs his arm before he can walk up to Harry’s front door.

“Hey,” he says. “I don’t want to be fighting with you. I don’t want us to be doing…whatever this is, I don’t even know what—fighting. I don’t want to do it fighting. Can we make up the fight? I don’t even know what we’re fighting about right now. I’m sorry for what I did. Can you be sorry for what you did?” He’s hoping this vagueness works, because being more specific about what they’re fighting about will only lead to more fighting, and he knows from experience that he and Pete make denial and sweeping things under rugs work for, well, it’s going to be twenty years soon.

Pete looks at him for a long moment. And then he smiles like the fight never happened, which is how Pete can be. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m sorry. Yeah.” And then he goes for a fierce hug, burying his face against Patrick’s neck.

Patrick loves when Pete’s head finds its proper place against his shoulder. It’s like puzzle pieces fitting together, and it makes Patrick feel better when it happens. Sometimes he thinks that it fits so perfectly there that Pete should leave it just there forever, stubble scratching against his skin, body draped against him.

Patrick doesn’t often say things like this out loud—that’s ordinarily Pete’s job—but he says it now because he’s feeling oddly needy in the wake of the fight, on the precipice of Harry Styles’s house. “You really are my best friend in the entire universe.” He leaves unsaid the implication that follows, which is that he never wants to lose him, ever. He did it once before and he was miserable. Life without Pete Wentz is boring and massively empty and terribly lonely and he doesn’t want to have to do it again.

Pete says, “I know. Me, too,” and lifts his head up. “I’m not going to make you have a threesome with Harry Styles. I will protect your virtue from the assault of British pop stars.”

 _What about American former emo punk princes with unerring instincts for second acts?_ thinks Patrick.

“Let’s do this thing,” says Pete, and knocks on Harry Styles’s door.

***

Patrick had never spent any time at all wondering what Harry Styles’s house looked like. But he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t think it would look like _this_. It’s covered in loud patterns, impossibly soft fabrics, all of them richly velvety dark and sinful. Patrick’s not sure it’s a house. Patrick thinks it might be a sex club.

He murmurs in Pete’s ear as they’re led forward by the not-Harry-Styles person who had let them in. “Is this a sex club?”

Pete gives him an amused look. “What do you know about sex clubs?”

“That they probably look like this?” Patrick offers.

Pete grins and shakes his head, and then they reach Harry Styles. He’s sprawled louchely on the floor, leaning up against an enormous roughly-pyramid-shaped pillow of a shimmering midnight blue that’s deep enough to almost trick you into being black. It’s like Harry Styles is leaning up against the Milky Way. Patrick doesn’t even know how to look at the tableau. It’s worsened by the fact that all of the lamps are swathed in gauzy fabrics, so the light in the room is all diffused colors that blend together into a murky rainbow of glowing non-illumination.

Patrick changes his mind. He doesn’t think this is a sex club anymore. This is clearly an opium den. 

Harry is drinking something out of a curiously tall and thin cup. When they approach him he says, sounding surprised, “You came together.”

Patrick is annoyed. He has no idea what the fuck this is, and now Harry Styles is just lounging around _judging_ them for fuck knows what reason, while living in a fucking _opium den_. “Seemed efficient,” he snaps.

Pete drops to the floor with Harry like that’s a thing you’re supposed to do and says enthusiastically, “I _love_ what you’ve done with this place. Who’s your decorator?”

Harry regards him coolly. “Do you think I would trust anyone but myself to embody the rich imaginings of my mind?”

Pete just say, “Okay,” like that’s a normal question to be asked.

Patrick stands, because standing is clearly the only sensible course of action, and looks down at Pete, who’s settling in against his own Milky Way pillow. “We should go.”

“We just got here,” Pete says, looking up at him.

“You should take a seat, Mr. Stump,” Harry says negligibly. “I’m about to fix your life.”

“My life doesn’t need to be fixed,” Patrick retorts. “My life is going pretty fucking well, thanks so much for your concern.”

Harry gives him a look and says, mildly but with an odd edge lurking underneath, “Take a seat.”

“There _aren’t_ any seats,” Patrick complains, and then Pete tugs him down to the floor with him.

Patrick feels idiotic, arranging himself cross-legged and refusing to lounge against the provided pillows.

Harry has materialized some sort of…fuzzy binder? That’s the best description Patrick has for it. Patrick can’t figure out where it came from. Maybe Harry actually is magical? That seems absurd but Patrick can’t come up with other explanations for this. He looks around the room and reassesses. Maybe it’s a wizard’s abode? Maybe this is how wizards live? He wants to ask Pete, because Pete seems more likely to believe that wizards exist and to know exactly how they live, but he can’t ask Pete in front of Harry Styles.

Harry is flipping through the binder and murmuring, “Hmm, hmm,” to himself, and Patrick stops looking around at the room and starts looking at the binder.

And jumps in surprise. “Hang on,” he says, and then reaches out to pull the binder over to him.

“Patrick,” Pete scolds him. “Harry was looking at that.”

“You know,” Harry remarks languidly, “if you’re going to start taking things without asking, you could start with Pete’s dick.”

Pete makes a strangled sound next to him.

Patrick ignores all of this. “Shut up,” he says. “Pete, this is us. This is an _entire binder_ full of us.”

It is. It starts with the earliest photos Patrick can remember being taken of the two of them, at gigs in ignoble shopping malls, Pete looking delighted and giddy and happy next to him and Patrick looking shy and confused, and then it keeps going, progressing through van years, and Warped Tour, and _From Under the Cork Tree_ , and _Infinity on High_. Endless pictures of the two of them. In the beginning they’re posed together, they know the camera is pointed at them and they’re looking straight at it, but the binder slowly becomes more and more candids, the two of them looking at each other and laughing or smiling. Patrick looks comfortable in these pictures, relaxed, even when Pete is cozied up to him on stage. There’s an ease to the way they exist in each other’s space, irresistible, undeniable. In a weird way, watching them progress, it’s like falling in love with Pete all over again. Which is silly, because Patrick was in love with Pete the day he met him, maybe earlier than that, but that was different than falling in love with _actual_ Pete, the one who became his best friend, the one he came to know so well that he could sense when he was on the brink, even if he didn’t ever really know what to _do_ for him. Patrick watches himself in photographs falling inexorably deeper and deeper into love with Pete, never hitting bottom. He never fucking stops falling, he thinks with a clarity he’s never thought before. He’s still fucking plummeting for Pete.

Their _Rolling Stone_ cover has been altered, Joe and Andy stripped out of it, which is mean and Patrick would call Harry on it, except, when it’s just him and Pete, he actually _looks_ at him and Pete. It’s a posed shot, but for once he’s the one invading Pete’s space, his elbow on Pete’s bare shoulder, and the look on Patrick’s face, Patrick knows, has not been altered in the slightest. _This is what I get to do with my life_ , says Patrick Stump’s face, as Patrick leans on a shirtless Pete Wentz. _Not gonna lie, it’s pretty good_.

Patrick pushes the binder away, feeling shaky and sick, and Pete pulls it over to him for a closer look, but Patrick looks up at Harry. “Are you stalking us? How long have you been stalking us?”

Harry sips from his weird cup and looks steadily at Patrick. He looks entirely unimpressed by him.

“Where did you get all of this?” Pete asks next to Patrick, sounding awed.

“That’s actually just a tiny selection,” Harry answers that question instead of Patrick’s. “That’s _curated_.”

“You have a curated binder of photographs of us?” Patrick says, hoping he’s not the only one who hears how ridiculous that is.

“Do you know what I do, Mr. Stump?”

Patrick doesn’t understand why Harry is so strangely formal with him. Why doesn’t he call him by his first name? He says, “You’re a musician.”

Harry scoffs. “Wrong. Wrong! How dare you characterize any of us that way? Are you a musician? Is _he_ a musician?” Harry jabs a finger at Pete.

“Pete’s a poet,” Patrick says without thinking.

It’s apparently the right answer, because Harry unleashes a silky smile and says, “Yes. Exactly. None of us are _merely_ musicians, Patrick Stump.” He leans forward to deliver a conspiratorial secret. “We’re magicians. We move mountains. We work miracles.”

Patrick says uneasily, “Are you…quoting…us…?”

“What?” says Harry.

“Never mind,” Patrick says.

Harry sits back. “I fix people’s lives.”

“How?” asks Pete. He sounds fascinated.

“By showing them what they’re doing wrong.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, “but, honestly, we’re doing really well. We don’t need to start…doing opium, or whatever this is. Pete really doesn’t need to do any opium. We’re good, we’re just going to—”

“ _Opium_?” Harry exclaims. “Has anyone on these premises offered you _opium_?”

“No,” Patrick admits.

“Good. They shouldn’t be offering you opium before they offer me opium. That’s just rude. Do you know Andrew Garfield and James McArdle?”

“Who?” Patrick asks, thrown by…everything.

“Andrew Garfield,” Pete says. “We know _of_ him. We’ve never met. Are you going to hook us up with Andrew Garfield?”

Harry cocks his head. “Do you want to be?”

“I don’t know,” says Pete. “Is he a fan?”

“Do you only fuck fans?” Harry asks curiously.

There’s a moment of silence.

Pete says, “By ‘hook us up,’ I didn’t mean that I wanted to fuck Andrew Garfield. But I don’t know, I guess we can have a conversation about—”

“You’re not,” Patrick says decisively, “fucking Andrew Garfield. No one is fucking anyone else.”

“I’ve noticed,” Harry remarks. “That’s the problem.”

Patrick narrows his eyes. “It’s not a problem. And who we’re fucking isn’t your business.”

“Yes, it is. It is quite literally my business. It’s my job. Do you know Andrew Garfield and James McArdle?”

“We already said no,” Patrick snaps.

“Shame. Because I’m responsible for them. And they’re very happy together.”

“Good for them,” Patrick drawls sarcastically. “We’ll send them a congratulatory bouquet. Can we go now?”

“What are we doing wrong?” Pete asks seriously.

“ _Pete_ ,” Patrick says to him.

Pete looks at him defensively. “What? He says he has advice to offer. Don’t you want to hear what it is?”

“He doesn’t even _know_ us,” Patrick points out reasonably.

“He made Andrew Garfield and whoever very happy,” Pete replies, waving a hand around.

“But…” Patrick is suddenly stung, in a way that makes him want to go somewhere and curl up into a ball. Stung in a way he doesn’t want to have happened in front of stranger Harry Styles. Stung in a way that needs to be gasped at, swallowed down, shivered over.

Pete looks at him.

Patrick opens and closes his mouth. He thinks of roaring fights; of throwing things across recording booths, heedless of all the expensive equipment; of Joe and Andy scrambling out of the way of them when they went for each other’s throat; of Pete, breathing hard and farther away from him than he had even been, flatly demanding that he had to explode everything, they had to be done, there was nothing left for the two of them but immense unhappiness and everyone had to walk away. Patrick had never known an adulthood with a Pete who wasn’t happy to see him, who didn’t light up at him for no fucking reason, who didn’t say he was his favorite person, so cherished he could have been a dream. When that Pete had vanished into the haze of violent, fidgety malcontent, Patrick had been at an absolute loss as to what do with the Pete that replaced him.

And Patrick, in a really terrifying way he tries not to think about, would do fucking anything not to have that happen again.

“You’re unhappy?” he says finally, carefully, which seem like the safest thing to say in front of Harry Styles.

“No,” Pete says after a second. “I mean. Not—”

“He’s in love with you,” Harry interrupts, sounding bored.

Patrick tears his eyes away from Pete’s to look at him.

He is literally _filing_ his _nails_.

“What the fuck,” Patrick says.

Harry explains, “I cannot abide a sharp edge,” and files away.

“That’s not what—What is going on?” Patrick complains. He wants to be back on their tour bus, watching a bad movie together. Probably Pete would be cuddled up against his side. It would be nice.

“I don’t understand what’s confusing to you,” Harry replies. “He’s in love with you. He’s been in love with you from the beginning.”

“Yeah, but that’s not a real thing,” Patrick says.

“Why isn’t it a real thing?” asks Pete.

Patrick turns back to look at him. “What?”

“Why do you think that’s not real?”

Patrick wishes the light in this fucking room weren’t pink and purple and orange and green so he could see Pete’s face. He says, “You’re in love with everyone.”

“Who else,” says Pete flatly.

Patrick doesn’t know what to say. “What?”

“Who else am I in love with? Who the _fuck_ else do you think I’m in love with?”

Pete sounds angry, miffed, his eyes glittering like the Milky Way pillow he’s reclined on.

Patrick is at a loss. Because, truthfully, Patrick doesn’t know who else Pete might be in love with. Just that he’s been telling himself this for so long, that Pete doesn’t mean it, that Pete is just physically affectionate, that Pete is just the equivalent of a golden retriever who’ll follow anyone who offers a treat to him. This has to be the narrative of Pete, or else Patrick…or else Patrick doesn’t know.

“I don’t know,” Patrick says, “your…your collection of Lost Boys, your whole… You’ve got a million friends, you—”

“You do not,” says Pete coldly, “you _cannot_ , believe that I’m in love with…who? Every artist on the label? Every contact in my cell phone? I talk to other people because I’m a friendly person. I’m not _in love_ with everyone I talk to. What kind of world are you living in? Do you know what it means to say that I’m in love with you? Do you think it just means that I like hanging out with you? You are the sun and I am just the planets spinning around you. I’m yours, ‘til the earth starts to crumble and the heavens roll away. You are my truest feeling yet, I love you so much it’s like oxygen and it’s going to my head. Everything else is a substitute for your love. When your stitch comes loose, I want to sleep on every piece of fuzz and stuffing that comes out of you. Don’t you know there’s nothing more cruel than to be loved by everybody but you? If you were church, I’d get on my knees. Fuck you.”

Patrick flails mentally. Patrick says stupidly, “Those are lyrics, you’re quoting lyrics.”

“They’re _my_ lyrics,” Pete spits out, “that I send to you. My words. And don’t even pretend you don’t know exactly what they mean, because I sent you lyrics about tying you up in black silk and you had an emotional breakdown over how to deal with it. So fuck you.”

Patrick stares at him. “Hang on,” he starts. “We’ve been playing this game for-fucking-ever. When did you change the rules?”

“ _You’ve_ been playing this game forever,” Pete informs him. “I never was.”

“You know, Patrick,” says Harry, “you’re in love with Pete.”

Patrick looks at Harry, who’s now somehow eating _cotton candy_? That’s what it looks like to Patrick, but Patrick doesn’t care enough to stop to wonder about that. He snaps, “I know,” in unison with Pete.

And then he and Pete fall silent and stare at each other.

“Wait,” Pete says. “You _know_ you’re in love with me?”

“Of course I know,” Patrick says. “How much of an idiot do you think I am? I’ve been in love with you practically since I was old enough to know how to fall in love. Sometimes I think being in love with you has been the definitive event of my entire personhood. Being in love with you shaped me so much, I don’t know who I am without you.”

Pete looks stunned. “I didn’t think you knew.”

“I knew,” Patrick replies shortly. “I _know_.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Harry asks. “Honestly, the two of you have one of the biggest binders of any OTP I’ve ever worked with. I can’t figure out what’s in your way.”

“ _This_ is in our way,” Patrick says, pointing to the binder. “It’s all of this. It’s my entire adulthood, caught up in _him_.” Patrick points at Pete now. “And you act like this is so simple, so straightforward, whereas if I fuck this up, then that means I don’t—” Patrick runs out of breath and has to gasp. “I don’t…” He turns to Pete, who is just staring at him. “We work. This works. It’s worked for all these years, it’s worked so well, we know exactly what to expect of each other, and it’s great. Isn’t it great? Isn’t it better for us to be the way we are than to not be at all?”

“Why would we fuck it up?” Pete asks in a low voice.

“Why _wouldn’t_ we?” asks Patrick, exhausted. “Why _wouldn’t_ we, Pete?”

“I mean,” says Pete. “Because we haven’t yet. The only thing we have to gain here is a few orgasms and I can’t imagine that wouldn’t improve our moods.”

“And I can’t imagine how to do the rest of my life without you. Don’t make me do it.”

“I wouldn’t,” says Pete. “I won’t.”

There is a long moment of silence. Patrick runs his hand over the nearest Milky Way pillow. It feels impossibly soft.

Harry says, “I have that specially made by Dior.”

“Okay,” says Patrick, annoyed he said everything he just said, annoyed he said it all in front of _Harry Styles_.

“You need to trust him,” Harry says, and Patrick knows that Harry is right. That Harry Styles, somehow, weirdly, took seventeen years of freaking out on Patrick’s part and distilled it to the essential truth: He has to trust Pete. He could have everything he wanted, if he just trusted Pete. He _knows_ this.

Patrick is very tired. Patrick wants Pete, in a very uncomplicated way. He just wants Pete to be there, next to him, familiar and accepting and _Pete_. That’s all he wants. Why can’t he just have that?

Pete looks at him and Pete says, “Let’s go home,” like Pete knows what Patrick is thinking.

And Pete says nothing in the cab, and nothing on the plane, but it’s a different silence than before, not an angry silence but a gentle one, a soft and waiting one. When they join up again with Joe and Andy, Andy says, “How was Harry Styles?” and Joe says, “What the fuck was that all about?” and Patrick says, “I’m so tired, can we catch up later?”

Everyone looks at him in surprise and Pete says, “It’s fine, it was a whirlwind trip, Harry was fine.”

Joe and Andy kind of shrug at them, in that way they’ve just been shrugging at them for nearly two decades. Patrick drags himself onto the tour bus and he’s going to curl himself up in bed, but Pete grabs his hand and tugs him onto the couch and says, “It’s okay. Whatever, Patrick. Whatever you want. It’s all okay. Okay?”

And Patrick wants to sob with relief, because this is Pete, Pete who has been just like this for him, forever, for as long as he can remember now. It’s Patrick who curls up with his face pressed into Pete’s neck this time, and it feels just as right.

***

They play a show. They watch terrible movies. They even write a song. It works the way it always worked, and this is what Patrick asked for, this is what he requested, so he should be happy with it.

But he’s not.

Because Pete’s in love with him and he knows that now, and Patrick’s in love with him and Pete knows that now, and Patrick feels like it throbs between them. Pete stays away from him on stage, like teasing him is too much in their current situation, and Patrick aches with how careful Pete’s being, and doesn’t want it. Patrick was wrong: This isn’t what he wants at all.

Patrick goes in search of the black silk. Pete isn’t the only one who knows all the secret hiding places. And then he goes into the lounge. It’s the middle of the night, and Pete is at a stage of insomnia that he’s indulging instead of trying to subdue. He’s watching something, but he sits up in surprise when Patrick arrives in the lounge.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s up?”

“Here’s the thing.” Patrick sits on the couch next to him and looks at him in the white light from the television. “I’ve loved you as long as I’ve known you.”

“Me, too,” Pete says carefully.

“You’re the most important person in my life.”

“Same,” Pete replies.

“And when we met, you told me to trust you. And I did. I trusted you with what seemed like everything. It felt like I put my entire life in your hands. People always used to say to me what a tremendous amount of trust I must have had in you, to let you take my career and my talent and do as you wished. But my great secret was that it felt like no trust at all, because all of that was unimportant, as long as I was keeping my heart safe. I thought I was keeping my heart safe all this time. But I don’t know why I thought that. It’s never been safe from you. It’s always been exposed, and sometimes I feel absolutely raw with how exhausting it is to love you and not let myself have you. And I’ve been thinking… Why did I do this? Everything I trusted you with, you turned golden. You have been nothing but careful and extraordinary with everything I trusted you with. You made my life greater than I could ever have imagined. I feel like probably…the odds are good…you could do that with my heart, too.”

Pete is silent and still. He looks and looks at him.

Patrick hands him the black silk and holds out his hands. “Tie me to the bedpost and to you.”

Pete looks down, and then Pete lays one of his wrists against one of Patrick’s. He loops the silk around both of them. He leans down and uses his teeth to aid in the knot he ties. And then he lifts up their conjoined hands.

“Patrick,” he says. “We’re tied together.”

Patrick uses his bound hand to twist into Pete’s shirt and tug him close. Pete’s hand twists likewise in Patrick’s shirt. They kiss.

It feels like victory.


End file.
